Add a RSS reader in your Screensaver

With Axialis Professional Screen Saver
Producer you can create screensavers with a RSS reader embedded. RSS, which means
"Really Simple Syndication", is a new way to publish information
online. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your
site.

At the heart of the technology is special
Web coding, called XML, which has been widely developed by the online
community over the past few years. Anyone can pick up the RSS codes and
with the appropriate software display the information.

A RSS reader is included in the screensavers
you will compile. You just have to create your own online RSS feeds (see
tutorial link below) and add the URLs to them in the above list. Adding
RSS news in your screensaver is a great idea.

IMPORTANT: If your screensaver includes a RSS reader,
it will attempt to access the Internet. This may pop-up a firewall alert on the end-user computer. An Internet access may be considered as suspicious by the this user (malicious codes like virus or trojans act like this). We
strongly recommend to inform the end-user about this.

Add a RSS reader in a screensaver

1. Open your
screensaver project. It works with all kind of screensavers (sprite, Flash,
slideshow, video). Compile it either as SCR or as Install Package. Choose Project/Compile an Installable Screen
Saver File (Shift+F4) or Project/Compile
a Screen Saver File (F4).

2. The first
dialog box of the compilation wizard opens. Follow the procedure until Step 2 "Description" (see below) if you choose to compile a SCR file or until Step
4 "Screensaver Information" if you choose to create an
install package.

3. To activate
the RSS reader and specify feeds, in the RSS
feeds zone, click on the Enable
RSS Reader option (). The Specify
URLs button is activated. Click on this button, a second dialog
box opens:

4. In the Source URLs zone (),
enter the feed URLs you wish to use in the reader. Specify
one URL per line. The reader will downloads the news in all URLs when
the screensaver starts and display them all in sequence.

You
can also specify UNC network paths to XML files. It could be useful to publish news via the screensaver on
all the computers installed in your company. For example, specify: "\\MainServer\CommonFiles\News\daily-news.xml"

5. If you want
to allow the user to modify these URLs (add/remove) once the screensaver
is installed, click on the associated option (). When done
click OK. Continue with the compilation
wizard.

6. Once the
compiled screensaver is installed, the RSS reader will access the internet
each time it starts (in background), get the news and display them is
a small window in the lower-right corner of the screen:

The
end user can enable/disable the RSS reader and change URLs (if you allowed it) from the screensaver "configure" dialog box.